» My most recent Autostraddle article addresses what school safety really means (hint:visibility, integration) for LGBTQI students:

Almost every school lists in their mission or their educational philosophy that they want to develop the “whole child.” They’re shaping people not manufacturing educated machines. And yet, there was a very large part of my identity that I didn’t even get to explore in school. I am of course talking about my gender identity and my sexuality. I was talking to friends about this recently – about how I was never offended by the fact that I couldn’t bring a girl to a dance, for example (oh remember that at this time I was presenting as a woman, didn’t know I was a guy, and sort of identified as a lesbian). My friends agreed that we just assumed school wasn’t the place for that part of us.

But looking back, school did seem to be the place for that part of my straight and normatively-gendered peers. Heterosexual, cisgender people, for the most part do get to develop their gender and sexual identities in school. From early childhood through high school graduation, schools seem a little more committed to the development of the whole child for those guys.

How?

+ Through the families depicted in children’s books
+ Role-playing options in PreK and Kindergarten
+ Characters studied in literature and film
+ Gender segregation (boys’ line, boys’ sports, boys’ bathrooms)
+ Pairings supported by faculty and administration (whether it’s a teacher commenting on the cute “couple” in 1st grade or the awarding of Homecoming King and Queen – again, gendered – to the well-liked straight couple in high school)
+ Alums whose weddings or work are celebrated in publications
+ Sex education classes that only talk about heterosexual sex or marriage
+ Teachers who talk about their personal lives and families
+ Photos on seemingly-benign motivational posters or in textbooks
+ Science courses that only address the binary sexes and genders in biology
+ History lessons that include spousal and familial details for heterosexual figures, but not homosexual figures.

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Posted 4 months ago with 37 notes
Tags: schools  school  LGBTQ   // Comments